


An Act Too Often Neglected

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Is James Now, Foxes, M/M, Princes, The Little Prince - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2583119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prince had always been destined to lose his fox. It was right there in the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Act Too Often Neglected

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Давно забытое понятие](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2659586) by [Taytao](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taytao/pseuds/Taytao)



> This story makes at least 90% less sense if you're not familiar with Chapter 21 of The Little Prince, but [conveniently someone has put Chapter 21 of The Little Prince online](http://www.angelfire.com/hi/littleprince/framechapter21.html), so if you haven't read that and you want to read this, click over and check that out, it's short and there are adorable pictures.
> 
> Thanks to Iulia, feanor_in_leather_pants and Rubynye for encouraging this! And also many thanks to Iulia for pretending there is some question of which one of us is the fox and which one is the prince.

"You don't!" James yelled, not for the first time, and Steve just glared at him, like he did every time they had this fight. James didn't know another way to make his point except to keep hammering away at it.

"I'm not Bucky. I'm not the guy you lost--he's the one you love, and you gotta stop saying that to me because it's not true. You don't. You don't know me, not what I am now. You can't love me."

Steve didn't yell back, for once, but James recognized the calculating look on his face. He knew that Steve was working out a way around the obstacle he was faced with. James kind of enjoyed that look on Steve's face when the obstacle wasn't himself--even when it was, if it was a sparring match--but now it made him want to throw things.

"Coffee," Steve finally said, with a particular emphasis that triggered an automatic answer from James.

"Wheat," James replied, and almost before the word was out of his mouth he was shaking his head, slashing his hands through the air to negate it. "So you can fucking make me say a countersign, we both fucking know I remember things he knew, that doesn't mean--"

"It was how we said we loved each other for about a year before you fell," Steve said quietly. "Do you remember why?"

James dropped his hands and stared, mostly occupied with being furious that Steve had tricked him into saying it--not that it wasn't true, but Steve would read something else into it, an admission he hadn't meant to give. James could and did love Steve; he knew Steve pretty well, thanks to Bucky's memories and the last few weeks. Steve was the same as he'd always been. Bucky had been right about him; that didn't mean that Steve knew a damn thing about James.

"Here," Steve said. "I'll remind you."

Steve walked over to a bookshelf, pulled out a small white-covered paperback book, and flipped it open to some pages near the end. James expected him to read it out loud, or hand the book over, but Steve took the book into the kitchen.

James followed him, watching while Steve pulled a ruler from the junk drawer and set it into the crease of the pages to make a straight edge when he tore several pages out. He folded them over, then again, opened them and riffled through them, folded them backward, crosswise, crumpled them slightly, and then flattened them out on the counter. He pulled a pen from the drawer and wrote something in the margin of one of the pages, folded them up again, and threw the abused wad of paper at James's chest.

He didn't actually have to read the words, once he had the pages in his hand, but his eye caught inevitably on the first line under the number 21: _It was then that the fox appeared._

The rest of the story fell into place in his head, almost word for word. Bucky had had it pretty well memorized.

James flipped unnecessarily to the page where Steve had written _coffee_ in the margin next to the long paragraph where the fox asked the prince to tame him: _But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..._

More than the story, James remembered the pages--different from these, but close enough to recognize. Steve had had the pages in his pocket when he rescued Bucky from HYDRA--he'd bought the book in the States when it first came out, and tore out those pages to keep with him when he came to Europe. Bucky had stolen them from Steve and found _coffee_ already written in the margin. He'd underlined _gold_ and _grain_ and _wheat_ and kept the pages in his own pocket until Steve stole them back, and the next time Bucky stole them he found coffee underlined, and the other margin occupied by a sketch of an oak leaf and acorn. They'd never spoken about the story or the pages or what they wrote in the margins, except sometimes to trade the words _coffee_ and _wheat_ , but one of them or the other had had those pages in his pocket for months. Bucky had had them when he fell, and the pages were lost with him.

The prince had always been destined to lose his fox. It was right there in the story.

"It was a love letter someone else wrote for us," Steve said quietly. "And it was an argument we had over and over. Do you remember why I said coffee all those times?"

"Because it meant you loved him," James gritted out, even though he remembered enough to know that there was more to it than that.

"Because you're my prince, and I'm your fox," Steve said steadily. "You tamed me back when we were kids. You _established ties_. You chose me, you made me care about you and like you. And you were unlike every other boy to me, and I was unlike every other boy to you. And the thing is, you always thought you were the fox, and I was the prince. That's what we fought over, every time we said _coffee_ and _wheat_. Who was a half-wild animal and who was the boy who tamed him."

"I think I win that argument now," James said flatly, waving his metal arm in a general demonstration of how much taming he'd needed lately.

"That's what other people see, sure," Steve said. He came a cautious step closer, like James might bolt. "But I still see a reason to wake up and drink a cup of coffee every morning. I'm still the fox, and you're still my prince. And if I love the sight of coffee for the sake of the things you did ninety years ago you can bet your ass I love you, too, no matter how much you've changed. I don't love you because of any particular thing you do. I don't love you because of what you remember."

"But I'm not--I'm not _him_ ," James insisted. "I'm something else now. I'm not--"

"I know your step which is unlike any other step," Steve said, coming closer still. "I love you because you're the one I chose to love, and you still are. I don't care what your name is now. I know you when you're standing in front of me."

Steve took another step in, close enough to touch, and James didn't back off and didn't push him away.

"I love you because you tamed me and I tamed you, and I belong to you, and you belong to me. I love you because of the coffee and the wheat. If you don't want to be called Bucky anymore, if you want me to sit quietly and tame you all over again, I'll do it. If you think I'm doing a shitty job of loving you because I'm hung up on the way things used to be, I'll do better. But I do love you. You're still my prince. I'll still drink coffee every morning and think of the color of your hair. You did that to me a long goddamn time ago, and you're not getting out of it now."

"What if I'm not?" James said quietly. "What if I'm just a man with a gun?"

"My prince was always a man with a gun," Steve replied, reaching out to set his hand on James's face. James let him do that, too. Maybe giving up on resisting what you wanted was a part of getting tamed. "My fox always had sharp teeth."

"Don't cry to me if you get bit, then," James said, but when Steve smiled, James remembered that Steve's teeth had always been plenty sharp, too.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is [also on Tumblr](http://dsudis.tumblr.com/post/102057202704/this-story-makes-at-least-90-less-sense-if-youre) and so am I!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] An Act Too Often Neglected](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3654444) by [sallysparrow017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallysparrow017/pseuds/sallysparrow017)




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